The Ties That Bind
by TheDepths
Summary: Every house has their secrets, and when a figure from the past returns, the Kuchiki find that although the skeletons in the closet are best left alone and the dirt best left swept under the rug, not everyone wants to keep it that way. Not everyone was satisfied with how it ended. Trigger Warning: Nothing Explicit, but Mature Themes.


He knew this room, knew it like the back of his hand. Knew it a little too well. But he did not remember how he came to be here. One moment he was working in the office, and the next he found himself awakening in this very room.

This was ridiculous, he mused, as he tugged at the ropes that bind him to the very chair he voluntarily sat on at every Clan meeting.

He would free himself. He reached for Senbonzakura, but felt nothing. Reached for that small spark of electric power that preceded a kido spell, but felt nothing.

He would panic, but it would unbecoming.

And he would not be unbecoming in his own home.

It was then that he noticed that he was not alone. Just as he was tied to his chair by rope threaded through with what appeared to be Sekkiseki, Rukia looked to be bound to a chair presumably by the same assailants who had attacked him.

He would have hissed outwardly in anger, but if the criminal had gone to such lengths to invade the Kuchiki house, and had managed to incapacitate both himself and Rukia, then he would do best to not reveal even the slightest hint of weakness to them.

Inwardly he raged, screamed and tore desperately at bonds constantly sapping his only source of power. Again he could do nothing. Again he had to sit there and watch as someone tried to hurt someone he held dear.

He took in her attire. A thin white slip of a kimono. He knew what that meant. He knew what that looked like. He knew what was going to happen.

He would have screamed, but there would be no one but her to listen to him scream, and perhaps it would be better, kinder, to have her unconscious when…

No.

He was not going to allow this.

This was not going to happen. Not again. Never again. He had not made a promise to anyone, not to anyone else, but this time he needed no promises to tell him what to do.

No one was going to hurt her again.

No one. Nowhere. Never.

Especially not under his watch, in his very seat of power.

Engrossed in his thoughts and disconnected from his reiatsu, he did not notice the presence of the other person until they stepped audibly closer but remained behind him.

"Good evening."

It was a slow, calm voice.

His heart stopped. He knew that voice. How many times had he heard this voice in his youth, how many times had he been treated kindly, almost indulgently.

He had missed this.

What a relief.

Someone was here, and he could be extricated from this mess, and…

No.

His heart constricted.

Something was wrong.

"As you can probably tell," the voice continued, as the footsteps drifted to his right, "this, is not the usual way in which I meet guests, Byakuya."

"Uncle," he replied, pushing the tiniest shred of fear down into the depths of his soul. He would wait. He would listen. Perhaps he was mistaken. Perhaps there had been a mixup.

The footsteps continued their pacing and the voice emerged again on his left, "But this is hardly the occasion for something usual, I would say."

He did not answer, dread coiling and uncoiling in the pit of his stomach.

"I leave for seventy years, and this is what I come back to?"

He said nothing. There was nothing to say.

"You shame our House with your every action, my boy, and I think it's time this foolishness is ceased."

A pause, and his head filled with confusion. This, everything about this situation made no sense to him at all.

"You see, when I first heard that you married that woman, I figured that you were being rebellious. Perhaps she had somehow conned you into taking street trash into your bed, but I honestly don't care too much about that now that it's over. It's good that she didn't last. I didn't even have to dirty my hands for that one."

He burned. Burned with rage he had not felt in over sixty years, and it hurt, that someone he had once held in such high regard, would turn around on him like this.

Yes, he owed much to this man, but no one would insult Hisana like that. He would not allow it. And whatever he was insinuating…

"How dare you-"

"Oh shut your mouth," a familiar figure appeared on his right. The owner of the voice stared, almost bored at the snarl of rage on his face, and Byakuya would have believed that the other was not perturbed at all if not for his eyes.

His uncle had always had extraordinarily expressive eyes for a Kuchiki, one of the main reasons why he had been shunned out of most politics. Byakuya had known him largely as a less strict, more indulgent, and far more distant relative than he should have been, given their relatively close blood ties, but this was the Kuchiki Clan. Blood ties rarely meant closeness within the clan.

In any case, Kuchiki Seijun had never been one for direct politics, to be fair, which was why he had mostly remained behind the scenes, resided in a separate mansion and generally kept away from the main house, preferring to do simple dealings with other members of Nobility.

Or so he had been told.

Seijun ji-sama's eyes burnt with a feverous rage. There was fury in those depths, that much he could see. Anger and disgust mingled in those eyes and Byakuya returned a scathing look of pure hatred as his uncle moved almost as if to gag him, before thinking better of it.

He did not know if he should be relieved, or terrified.

Seijun calmed himself down, still pacing, this time in front of his nephew.

"Then you take another one."

Byakuya's heart stopped. He couldn't mean…

"Oh no, you stopped lying to her a long while ago, but I've heard about the looks you give her, Byakuya."

No. He was wrong. In his mind, he scrambled for words to explain, words to just, simply, tell the truth, but somehow, no words came out.

"That is not how a Kuchiki sibling behaves, is it?"

For a moment he was confused, then it became clear. Pieces of the puzzle started fitting together, pieces that had seemed ridiculous at the time, pieces that he still did not want to admit existed.

No. He was imagining things. That could not have been…

Seijun took a step towards him and rested a heavy hand on his shoulder, pressing down on it until he felt it give, felt Byakuya give in.

He glared hotly at Seijun, but in all honesty, he just wanted to scream, just wanted to protest that he was not his father and Seijun was definitely not Rukia and it was different and she was not Hisana, he had never been seeking another and was Seijun blind for not seeing the differences between the two of them?

"I wouldn't care if you'd sought solace on some random whore's arms, boy," his uncle paced, "but to go through all that trouble, find out that she's a common criminal, and almost get yourself killed? When did you get stupid in the past seventy years, Byakuya, or were you just a brainless idiot all along?

His jaw tightened even further. He would not dignify Seijun with a response. Would not say anything to him. It was clear that there was nothing more to say.

"What is it about this thing that has you doing all this, hm?"

He watched, horrified as Seijun stepped away from him and towards her.

No. No. No. No.

No.

A hand reached out to brush her cheek. He could feel his blood boiling. No one had the right to do that to his sister unless she wished them to, and there was no way he would allow that to happen against her will. Not right in front of him. Not anywhere. Not ever.

"Step away from her," he hissed.

An eyebrow raised. "No, I don't think so."

He bit back a scream of fury, but watched almost transfixed as his uncle, no, this man was no longer his uncle, watched as Seijun reached behind her chair and pulled out a small vial.

"In fact, I think I'm going to feed this to her."

"Don't you dare."

"Who's going to stop me, boy?" Seijun looked around the room. "You? Your retainers? Your staff? You may be Head, boy, but that means nothing to me. That has never meant anything to me."

"Don't do it. You don't know what you're doing."

"I do," the clarity in his eyes was stunning. "Believe me, Kuchiki Byakuya, I know exactly what I'm doing."

He tipped the contents of the vial into her drugged, pliant mouth and it was all Byakuya could to do prevent a choked sob from tearing itself from his throat.

He had never been the most sentimental person, but this was not a time for trying to be strong. He had to save her. Had to stop this. Had to get the antidote, or whatever it was that would counteract whatever this was.

He strained at the bonds, hard enough for them to rub audibly against each other, but they would not break. Of course they would not break, this was a man who had seen him grow up and knew well how far his potential stretched. There was no way he would be so careless as to let him break free. This much Byakuya knew, but he strained at them anyway, cursing and swearing in his head as they refused to even give.

"What are you doing, Byakuya?"

He could hear the amusement in Seijun's voice, but he would not break. He would not give in. There had to be a way out of this.

His eyes darted around the room, raked across every surface, but found nothing. Seijun watching him, an almost amused smile on his face.

There was nothing.

Nothing.

He was drawing blanks. He could not afford to draw blanks now. If there was another way, it was not coming to mind, and if anything, he needed it to come to mind now.

Now.

Seijun tapped a foot on the ground, eyebrow raised.

"Find anything you like?"

No.

No.

This… this could not be. There had to be something, but…

He looked up and saw his defeat in those eyes. This was not only about him. He couldn't, couldn't try something stupid and have her hurt. No.

There was no way but to swallow his pride and beg.

"What have you done?" He had long since given up on trying to control his voice as it wavered dangerously, "What have you done to her?"

"Poisoned her. She'll start feeling the effects rather soon, but they might not surface under the drugs I used to knock her out. My incompetent subordinates obtained a dosage meant for a much larger person, you see, so it's possible she'll just pass like that."

Seijun almost smirked.

"No. No." He rocked his own chair dangerously, trying, hoping, and trying against hope to stretch out, to take away the poison, to do something.

She twitched.

"Rukia, listen to me." He began, and immediately the amusement on Seijun's face melted away, replaced by a cold hardness.

"It seems you still do not know your place, boy."

He was too far gone to care. Rukia was dying in front of him. Again. And this time he was powerless to stop it.

No. He had to stop it. Somehow.

She twitched again.

"Rukia!" He all but screamed, and she stirred a little, but that seemed to serve nothing more than to send physical spasms of pain through her body.

It was almost too much for him to bear.

"No. No. No."

He turned to Seijun, eyes flashing but face controlled.

Maybe, maybe this would work. "As the Twenty Eighth Head of the Kuchiki Clan, I order you to release her, Kuchiki Seijun."

A snort.

"You have no power over me," Seijun laughed, " And that's just the device taking effect, boy."

He stopped, cold, the blood draining from his face. "What device?"

"It's quite simple, really. I made it myself," he drew out a small metallic cylinder from behind her chair, "I press this, it explodes, she has a heart attack, dies. Simple as that."

Rukia twitched again, and again his heart stopped.

Seijun had put something into her. Something that held her hostage. Something that would and could control her life and Byakuya had not managed to stop him.

This was not happening. This was ridiculous, preposterous, so far-fetched that he would never have dreamt of it happening, but here it was, here it was happening and by god there was nothing he could do about it.

Seijun should not be here, Rukia should not be here, he should not be here, not now, and this was a terrible dream but he knew, he knew it was not.

His thoughts were interrupted by Seijun's musing.

"Hm, come to think about it, I should find out for myself what exactly it is about her that has you so riled up, Byakuya."

His world could not have come crashing down harder as he watched a hand stray towards her kimono, watched an eye glint with unbridled lust.

No.

No.

No.

"No. Stop. Don't." He was aware that he was begging. He could hear it in his own shaking voice.

The hand did not fall back, only moved slowly closer.

"Please." He was beyond caring about his own image, about the clan, about anything. He just needed this to stop.

He was not going to let this happen. He was not going to let her get hurt again.

"Please, what?" Seijun's tone hardened, and in that one moment, he saw it. There was something that Seijun wanted, something that drove him. Something that was not Rukia.

Something else.

Something he had. What it was, he could not tell for sure, but as long as it stopped her from hurting, as long as it kept her away from this madman, he would give it up.

"Anything," He said quietly, recognizing that flare of insanity hidden behind a mirror of schemes and deception.

"Anything, what," Seijun's tone deepened, darkened, hardened, and Byakuya could see that he was somehow getting closer to having the madman stay away from his sister.

He inhaled sharply, casting away the remnants of his own pride, burying the tiny part of his soul that screamed, as he looked away from the man, "Take it. Take anything. Just, just, don't hurt her anymore."

Seijun's eyes narrowed, and for the first time since he had awoken into this terrible nightmare, Byakuya could feel that this man was furious. Oh, he had been able to irritate him earlier, but this time, this time, Kuchiki Seijun was beyond angry.

"Anything?" It was a low, breathy, drawl.

Byakuya swallowed, and something in him screamed again, but one look at Rukia in the chair firmed his resolve, "Anything."

A small, cold smile grew on Seijun's face as a predatory gleam came to his eyes.

It was the look of someone getting exactly what he wanted.

* * *

_He would not think._

_He would not feel._

_He would not cry._

A hand fisted in the sheets as he broke, broke inside.


End file.
